When returning home after living in another country is a problem

Going to live in another country is not only a culture shock at the time of arriving at the new home and adapting to the local customs of the foreign land. Many times, It also supposes a second shock, yes, which arrives with some time lag. Specifically, when we return to our country of origin and realize that everything has changed.

This is a phenomenon known as reverse culture shock and is one of the consequences of uprooting and anxiety that emigration brings with it. And it is a sensation as vivid and intense as it is difficult to describe.

Readjusting to what we thought we knew

When someone emigrates to a distant place, they must not only invest time and effort in adapting to the new landscape and the customs that prevail in it; He is also making another kind of sacrifice, although this second one is not as noticeable. Specific, he is missing everything that happens in the place where he put down his roots and that it is linked to their memories, their learned customs and, therefore, to their identity and selfconcept.

This very discreet facet of uprooting has another drawback. Unlike what happens when we struggle to adjust to the foreign country we have come to live in, the shock of coming home after several years and realizing that we are no longer so linked to it is something that we do not expect, that surprises us and that, for it, it gives us an extra dose of stress.

The reverse culture shock appears precisely in that friction with sparks between the country of origin that we are visiting and what we expected to find when we arrived there.

Strangers in our own home

Time passes for everyone, including those who are going to live abroad. That is why it is a hard blow to return home and realize not only that we have lost a lot of relevant events, but also that we don't even know how to "move" very well through this place.

What friendships do we have left? Where have part of the businesses and shops to which we used to go have gone? How could the people we loved change so much? All these questions, added to the fact that over time the people in our social circle have become unaccustomed to spending time with us, They can cause us to experience three sensations: isolation, confusion, and doubts about our own identity.

Reverse culture shock

The reverse culture shock is, precisely, what is experienced when feeling that it does not fit with the way of doing and acting with the culture to which oneself was considered to belong by virtue of having lived in it for many years in the past.

On the one hand, life in the country of origin has not remained static, but has evolved both materially and culturally. On the other, the way of acting and thinking of the country to which we emigrate also it will have left an imprint in our brain, even if we don't notice it, and that is why it is very likely that when we return home we will see everything with different eyes.

The fact of returning home and not feeling entirely from one place or the other makes us feel uprooted and we need to readapt to life in the country that saw us grow up.

Frustration with new customs

Going home and getting frustrated at not finding large stores open on Sundays, getting desperate about the way to talking about our compatriots, not finding ingredients that we learned to love beyond the borders of our own country... The sum of these small daily events can make that we feel frustrated and stressed, and even that we cannot make our plans and schedules work well for a season.

Returning home in the best possible way implies being clear that we must dedicate a minimum effort to re-adapt to this place that is so familiar to us. After all, both what we have learned during our years living abroad and what we have forgotten about our own landGoing through what we thought would continue to be the same in our own neighborhood can leave us feeling very lost, alone, and confused if left unchecked.

Re-learning to live in our country

What to do in these cases? The main thing is to break with the possible isolation that can take over our lives if we assume that we can return to our country of origin and act as we did before. We may need to expand our circle of friends and do more of our part to meet the friends we do keep.

Similarly, it is better not to pretend that the years spent abroad have not existed: embracing what the distant lands have taught us is a good idea, since those kinds of memories they have become part of one's identity and trying to suppress them would be an imposture, besides being a blow to one's self-esteem. If you have to hide those signs that you have lived abroad, does it mean that the mark that has left us the other country are undesirable and that we are worth less for having let it into our way of think? Of course not.